Pages

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Start By Believing: New Attitudes Towards Sexual Assault

By Roger Canaff

A
hard-drinking and genius Senator from New York (Daniel Patrick Moynihan) was
fond of saying that everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their
own facts. When it comes to non-stranger sexual assault (the great majority),
Moynihan’s admonition is no less true. So here are the facts:

2.
False reports of sexual assault hover around the
rate of all other violent crimes (between 2% and 10%)

3.
Most
rape is serial rape, meaning most men who commit rape commit more than one (the
average is 6).

These
are research-based statements, and they have been confirmed
in subsequent research efforts. This is what non-stranger sexual assault
looks like, and it’s a plague. Interestingly, it’s a plague spread by
relatively few offenders. Most men won’t commit what we understand
legally to be sexual assault. They may be immoral, they may be
disrespectful, but most are not rapists. They’ll stop when they recognize
signs of fear, revulsion or discomfort on the part of their potential sexual
partners (signs, by the way, that really aren’t hard to discern). If they
come across an unconscious or semi-conscious woman (or man), they won’t shimmy
the clothes and underwear off of the person and sexually penetrate her or him.

Rapists,
on the other hand, do what they do because it’s how they view sex and
sexuality. They usually aren’t “traditional” criminals, meaning they
often aren’t tattoo-covered, grinning TV villains. They don’t wear masks
or jump out of bushes; they don’t have to. Instead they rely on the myths
that surround and permeate the notions we as a society have about sexual
violence. They employ remarkable cunning whatever their educational level
in order to identify victims, and they usually use alcohol or other intoxicants
to ready their playing field. When they strike, it looks like exactly
what they want it to look like- confusion, equivocation, and what some in the
media have termed “gray rape.” It’s almost never a clear-cut, “real”
rape. “Real” rape involves scary looking guys with darker complexions
than ours who jump out of bushes and attack complete strangers.
Everything else is…well…a part of the dating ritual. A rite of
passage. Just desserts for dressing slutty, drinking too much, staying
out too late, and for leading on red-blooded American boys. Because after
all, boys will be boys.

Believe
that tripe if you will, but you might as well insist the earth is flat.
The reality-based among us understand that things like terror or incapacitation
really aren’t that difficult to recognize for most men, and that most men take
those cues and back off when they see them. Nevertheless, the deniers
will insist that sex is kind of a game, and testosterone is a funny thing, and
ordinarily good guys might sometimes push things too far even though they’re
really solid, respectable men at heart. And of course, the assumption is
that ordinarily good gals will sometimes naturally regret sexual liaisons that
threaten their reputations and sense of self, and thus naturally “mistake” a
consensual act for a nonconsensual one, thus resulting in a call to the
police. Ah, and don’t forget the legions of gold-digging, devil-women who
haunt the bars and dance clubs of the world, looking to sting athletes, actors
and other celebrities with false charges of sexual violence for the chance at a
civil suit payoff or a reality show debut. It happens all the time.
Right?

No.
It really doesn’t. No more than “gray” sexual situations involving force
and incapacitation regularly produce reports to law enforcement and subsequent
dramatic trial dramas. In fact, the opposite is true. Most women in
clear-cut situations of sexual assault blame themselves and move on, let alone
unclear situations where they really can't remember or fully grasp what
transpired. That being said, are people capable of lying about sexual
assault? Of course. Do they? Of course. But is there
any reason to believe that most people who allege sexual assault are 1)
mistaken, or 2) lying? No. There is zero replicable, scientifically
based evidence to suggest anything like that, and quite a bit of evidence to
the contrary.

That’s
where Start By Believing
comes from (a disclaimer- I sit on the Board of Directors of End Violence
Against Women, International, the group behind the SBB campaign). SBB is
revolutionary, and it should be. It represents a radical, new look at how
we view cases of sexual violence. The bottom line is that, in the vast
majority of cases, there is no reason to doubt the victim making the allegation.
Further, even if one believes the victim, blaming her for “her part” in
inviting her victimization is both wrong-headed and counter-productive.

Victims don’t invite rape; they are chosen
by rapists who seek them out and recognize them as attractive targets.

A
victim is never responsible for what “she did” to bring on a sexual
attack. I’m a lawyer. I understand that the concept of
“contributory negligence” (the idea that the injured person did something to
contribute to his injury) is deeply embedded in the Anglo-American
psyche. But that’s not how sexual assault works. Instead, sexual
assault is a planned attack against an identified victim, chosen exactly
because the offender figured she either 1) wouldn’t report and/or 2) wouldn’t
be believed if she did. Further, the initial reaction a victim of sexual
violence experiences has everything to do with how easily she can relate her
own experience to authorities, how effectively she can assist in the case
against her attacker, and (most importantly) how quickly she can heal.

SBB
is about changing the attitudes of the rest of us- those who will be the person
a victim turns to when the unthinkable happens. If we simply start by
believing- not judging, not questioning, not rationalizing- but simply believing,
then we will be contributing remarkably to the healing process of the victim
and (possibly) to the prevention of further attacks. In fact, it's not
that radical when we break it down. We look at purse-snatchings this
way. We look at assaults and car theft this way. When it comes to
just about every other crime, we generally start by believing. There is
nothing- absolutely nothing- to lead us in any other direction where sexual
violence is concerned.

Take
the next step. For your daughters, your sons, your sisters, your
partners, your spouses, your neighbors, your friends. The damage
being done is incalculable, but so are the rewards when the tide is
turned. It's time.

1 comment:

I really like what's being said here. It's amazing how many people revile others for being willing to talk. They're seen as "troublemakers" or people who "go around rocking the boat". They're shunned or disbelieved simply for being wiling to talk! After all, who would WANT to tell anyone if something like that happened??? That's the reasoning with these stupid people!

Disclaimer

The opinions and information expressed in the individual posts do not necessarily reflect the opinions of each contributor of "Time's Up!" nor the opinion of the blog owner and administrator. The comments are the opinion and property of the individuals who leave them on the posts and do not express the opinion of the authors, contributors or the blog owner and administrator.